Stories And Feelings Through Words And Photographs.

The Importance Of Taking “Selfies”.

I never take “selfies”, nor it occurs to me to do so, and if it does, I find it stupid. Well, I guess with this post, that has changed or is about to.

I used to think “Who am I going to show it to?…It’s not like I’m going to post it on Instagram or something..what’s the point?” And because I overthink way too much, I was never very fond of the idea of taking the famous “selfie”. I mean, I’m a self-portrait artist, but it’s not the same at all. In my photographs I barely show my face, and it’s for art reasons, not because I want to necessarily take a picture of myself.

But the truth is, that when I’m looking through my camera roll and thinking of a certain day or a certain look that I had and can’t find a picture of it, I get so mad at myself. I don’t even have that many photos of me when I was little.

The other day, I was realizing all of this and precisely that week, my idol and favorite photographer Brooke Shaden made a post about her life in non-professional photos in which she was talking about this. “…I had also taken the obligatory “selfie” every now and again, and found that in doing so, I could remember feelings so clearly and vividly. It felt really good to relive those emotions…Why not be silly and serious and everything in between and share parts of ourselves that we usually don’t?…Because so much of what we do is, literally, what we do that it is easy to forget that we are so much more…the ridiculous and the happy and the sad, the things we’re made of.”

This made me think so much. It made me want to take random photos and selfies every now and then, because later I would look at them and remember what I was feeling at the moment. Even if they are stupid, blurry, dark, ugly it’s good to have certain moments taken. We don’t have to share them in social media to get likes and compliments. We can do it because we want to treasure these good parts of our life and have proof of what we have lived, cried and laughed….wow, I’m making this whole “selfie” thing way too dramatic.

This was the day of my sister’s play. I was excited.

No, but really, I have challenged myself to take more of this non-professional photos, I won’t post them probably anywhere but I’ll have them for me. At the end of the year, I’m going to share some of them with you and tell you my year in photos.

Taking “selfies” have different meanings and reasons to people, some do it to show the world how pretty they are, some do it to remember feelings, and some just do it for fun.